The Good Life
by Mandreinduck
Summary: Narumi is reincarnated into the Naruto world as Naruto's twin. Now, she has the chance to protect her new family and friends, and enjoy a good life. Of course, even good lives have bad times. (AU, non-canon, I REGRET NOTHING!)
1. Chapter 1: A Mother's Rage

Everything in my past life seemed far away, like trying to watch a video on a phone from a five foot distance. I could remember it, but it was vague and blurry at best. My first moments in my new life were filled with sharp confusion and debilitating fear. Despite my wails and cries, I was cuddled by my mother as soon as whoever helped to deliver me handed me over. Since my eyesight was horrendous and my hearing wasn't much better, I was left to make leaps in logic. There was another bundle close to me, a blue one, I assumed this to be my twin brother. I myself seemed to be wrapped in pink. My wails calmed and subsided as I was gently hushed, before being passed on to a person with a masculine tone, my father. His blob was a light yellow and something silver on his forehead. I was brought up to be held to his chest and rocked. I fell asleep soon after.

#########################

It took a few weeks to diagnose my hearing as accurate, and that the people around me were just speaking a completely different language. The next few months were layered with practicing syllables with my brother. He was the only social interaction I had outside of my parents. Time passed quickly, in between sleeping and incomprehensible baby talk. I think it was a few weeks later that my eyes cleared up, and I could clearly see my brother. Before, we had clumsily clung to each other, blindly seeking out comfort. But now I could _see_ him. He was blonde, and chubby, and had the bluest eyes ever. Once I processed that my vision was accurate. I promptly rolled over, as that was the only mode of transportation I had mastered, and curled into his side before passing out happily.

Mom came in later, jostling me awake as she picked my brother and I up. She had beautiful, long red hair, and immediately after acknowledging this fact, I latched onto it. The same thing happened with my poor father at the end of the day when he came home from wherever he was. He had blonde hair, and while it wasn't as soft as Mom's, it was still nice to hold onto.

##############

"Twins, what did I tell you about sneaking cookies?" Mom asked, in a mockingly sweet voice. Naruto and I paused our munching to stare at our mother, who had a dark shadow over her face.

"Not to…" We answered in unison, placing the half-eaten cookies back in the jar and setting it on the counter.

Now that Naruto and I were four we had the ability to walk and run, which meant we also had the skills to try and eat cookies when Mom was busy doing something else. Of course, she always caught us, and we've tried everything short of setting fire to the drapes to divert her attention. One time Naruto feigned being hurt while I tried to hoard the cookies when Mom was taking care of him. It would have worked, had Dad not been in the kitchen doing paperwork. After that fiasco Mom gave us a reason actually _be_ hurt with the training exercises we had to do as punishment.

Mom lunged at us, her hair turning into snakes. Naruto and I split up, I headed for the front door while he aimed for the back. Because Naruto had better evasion skills than I did, she went for him first giving me time to book it out of there. I ran for a few minutes, dodging the evening crowd by taking a back alley, further away from the rush of people. The sun was an hour or two away from setting, giving me some time before I absolutely had to head home. I veered off into a park, which was a safe ten minutes away from my house, to hide out until I felt like Mom's rage had died down.

As I was weaving through the trees, trying to choose a hiding spot, I tripped over something. Catching myself, I turned to see that I had tripped over a boy, my age. He appeared to have been napping at the base of the tree before I stumbled upon him. His hair was pulled into a pony tail, causing his brown hair to spike up. His brown eyes looked at me with an unamused glint.

"Sorry," I apologized. "I'm hiding from my mom. She's angry with me," I told him.

"Me, too. What a drag," he grumbled.

I shyly sat next to him, curious about why he was hiding. When I asked he shrugged, "Mom was nagging me."

I nodded, understandingly. "Mine was angry that Naruto and I were eating cookies. I got away because she went for Naruto first."

"Sounds like mine, except I don't have a sibling to help me get away."

We sat quietly for a few minutes, before all the birds and crickets in the park silenced. I tensed, I knew exactly who had caused that. We looked wide eyed at each other.

"That's my mom," we said in unison.

We paused, feeling the tension in the air grow thicker. "Wanna run?" I suggested.

He nodded, and we were off. As fast as we could go, we booked it in the opposite direction of human life, on the off hope that our mothers were part of that human life as well, and we were getting further away from their wrath. We ran for as long as we could, deep into the training grounds, and past that, even, for good measure. We collapsed into the grass of a tiny clearing, breathing heavily.

"My name's Narumi, Uzumaki Narumi," I wheezed.

"Nara Shikamaru," he sighed, "Man, this blows."

The ending consensus was to wait it out until sunset and then head home. Shikamaru and I settled into the grass to watch the clouds, pointing out which ones vaguely resembled what. It was fun, and the first social interaction I'd truly had outside of formal events and Naruto. Still, it didn't take the edge off of the impending doom at what awaited us at home.

We were just a few minutes away from heading back when a branch snapped eerily in the forest. Freezing, as if that could hide us from our mothers, we laid in wait. Only to have my brother pop out of the foliage.

"Naruto! How'd you find us?" I asked.

His chakra was all over the place, probably from running. He plopped down next to us.

"Because it's where I would have gone, dattebayo," he said, before looking at Shikamaru curiously. "Who's that?"

"Ah, Naruto, this is Shikamaru-kun. Shikamaru-kun, this is my twin brother, Naruto."

"Cool, hey! Mom told me that if you didn't get home by sun down that you wouldn't get dango for a whole month." I felt my mouth drop open in horror. "That's why I came to find you," he amended.

"We'd better get going then," I jumped up quickly before turning to my new friend. "You coming?"

Shikamaru grumbled to himself and got up.

"Alright, let's make this a race."

I nodded along to Naruto's idea.

"It'll get us there faster," was all Shikamaru had to say about it.

We were all cut off by a siren, the one that signaled an infiltration attempt.

"Oh, no, Mom's gonna kill us for sure" I groaned. "We gotta go."

Once again we were interrupted by the distinct sound of a ninja landing clumsily on the ground. There was a loud rustle. "Let go of me!"

"Shut it, kid, your clan's going to pay for my retirement fund," a voice growled lowly, trying not to attract attention.

"My aniki will stop you," the kid's voice threatened.

We huddled behind a tree. "We gotta save him, he's being kidnapped."

"Yeah, dattebayo!" Naruto agreed. We both looked to Shikamaru to see how he felt.

He nodded, "We'll need a plan. Okay, who's the fastest between you two?"

######################

"Hey, stop right there," I ordered, pointing at the foreign nin holding a dark haired little boy against his will.

"Shut it, squirt, before I silence you for good," the man hissed, scowling heavily behind his black mask.

"My daddy wouldn't like that."

"Yeah? Who's your daddy, little girl?"

I didn't feel so great about admitting who my father was, because Mom and Dad always stressed never to tell anyone, because the people who should know did know. But this was a part of the plan, I just needed to follow through for this to work. So I took a deep breath and stated with all the ignorance of an angry child I could muster, "Namikaze Minato," I tried to smirk, but it felt like a grimace. I just needed to stall for a good three more minutes we were in the clear.

C'mon, Naru, I thought to myself nervously, as the man smiled down at me sadistically. "Really now, and where is he?"

This guy was falling right into Shikamaru's plan. It was almost shocking how well this was going accordingly. Here goes my lying skills. "He's at a meeting with Suna right now, but he'll be here!" I stomped my foot, like Shikamaru told me, for the added childish effect. I need to make him underestimate me so completely, he won't see Shikamaru's trap coming. I ran away, trying to draw him toward the set up while discreetly avoiding the trip wire that was laid out. Once again, the man fell for it, literally. He face planted on the ground while the dark haired boy rolled away. I grabbed him, and began to head for the village, hoping to meet at a halfway point. Shikamaru joined up with us once we were out of the small clearing. The man was fast, though. His speed out matching us easily.

"Scramble," Shikamaru called.

All three of us did so, the boys went right, I went left. The man went after the boy he had originally planned on taking. I took to the trees, hopping from one to the other like I was taught to. I found the boy and Shikamaru cornered into a tree trunk, there was really only one thing I could do, so I jumped.

The ambush was easy, because the man was focused on threatening the boys. My feet landed first, connecting with his head, causing it to jerk to the side as he was thrown off balance and fell to the ground. I landed, slightly unbalanced, but otherwise okay

"Kotaro-kun, what's this? You're letting a bunch of kids beat up on you?" a voice teased.

The man, Kotaro, it would seem, got up from the dirt, stalking toward us. "Just surprised me is all."

Five more people jumped down, foreign nin, judging by the head bands. There were two girls and three boys, all wearing loose, scarf-like masks.

"We've wasted enough time already."

"This was supposed to be in and out, if you've just cost us our ransom I won't forgive you."

"But I found a little surprise on the way, isn't that right, girly?" Kotaro looked at me with a dark gleam in his eyes. He nodded his head towards me, "She's one of the Hokage's brats." I couldn't see under his mask, but I felt like he was smirking.

A familiar silence surrounded us, the kidnappers not seeming to notice. I paled drastically, this could only mean one thing.

"What, are you scared?" One of the ladies mocked in a sickly sweet voice. I nodded. "Don't worry you won't be hurt by us if your daddy pays up… Maybe."

"That's not what I'm scared of," I stated, a chill going down my spine.

That's when she arrived. Mom's red hair was tied up in a ponytail, but she still wore her apron and had a kitchen knife in her hand, the one she used for cutting beef or chicken. Her killing intent permeated the air, luckily not pointed at me. I wasn't too keen on seeing her tear apart these people, no matter how much they deserved it, it was still gross.

The foreign ninja scoffed at her, "What, a stay at home mom is going to stop us?"

A yellow blur stopped right beside us, "My wife isn't the only 'stay-at-home-mom' you have to worry about."

"Dad!" I exclaimed, relief washing over me. It was nice to know our plan worked. "Hey, Shikamaru-kun, this is my dad. Dad, this is a friend I made today. He's the one that came up with the plan and everything," I told him, grinning at Shikamaru.

Dad smiled, "That's nice, Narumi. You can tell me all about it while we let the women do their thing," Dad said, leading me over to some slightly familiar konoha jounin. The two women, stepped up with Mom. That's when it clicked.

"They're their mothers?" I motioned to my new friends.

"Yes, I was planning for you to meet them at your birthday party, but now is good, too."

I purposely ignored the sound of terrified screams. Instead of focusing on the torture my mom was dishing out I grabbed Shikamaru and the boy, and brought them over to the group so they wouldn't watch the ensuing horror. Shikamaru seemed to shake out of his slight daze and went over to a man with scars, who seemed to be his dad.

I turned to my own, "Where's Naruto?"

"Back at the house," Dad looked at the two other men, "We can head over there. Kushina made ramen, and I have a feeling this may take a while."

"Fine by me. Troublesome woman wouldn't let me join in, anyway. Said it was her 'right' as a mother," the scarred man grumbled.

"Mom made ramen?" I immediately held up my arms, so Dad could carry me. "Let's go, let's go!"

####################

And so we all ended up at our house eating ramen.

"And then," I told Naruto, "we had to split up, so he went for Sasuke-kun," I motioned to Sasuke, "'Because he wanted him first so I went tree hopping, and ambushed the guy while he was talking and stuff. I kicked him right in the head! And then, and then, " I took a deep breath, to prepare myself. "And _then_ five other people jumped from the trees, they were his friends, but they were mean to each other, so maybe they weren't friends. Then Mom showed up. All our moms did, and so that's where they are right now, kicking butt."

I grinned, proud at Naruto's astonished expression. "What? I missed all that? Dang it, you guys got all the fun."

"Next time, I'll be the runner, then," I offered.

"There better not be a next time, dattebane."

Naruto and I glanced at each other before running and glomping Mom. Her hair was slightly ruffled, but besides that there was no inclination that she had just been kicking butt. She hugged us back, before looking up at the other adults.

"Did you eat all the ramen?"

"Well..." Dad trailed off.

"We did, it was really good," Naruto said.

"Yeah, the best! But look, we made new friends."

We dragged her over to introduce her to Shikamaru and Sasuke, who were playing shogi together. They said hello, and Mom seemed to like them. I tugged at Naruto's shirt, to signal that he should be the one to ask.

He grinned, "Hey, can they come to our birthday party?"

And so, that is how Naruto and I made our first friends.

 **First chapter complete!**


	2. Chapter 2: Circle of Friends

"C'mon, Narumi, we're going to be late," Naruto told me, he tugged harder on my dress sleeve.

"It's our party, we can't be late. It starts when we get there," I huffed, but ran faster anyway, smoothing out my white sun dress so Mom wouldn't be so angry.

Naruto and I had been training our stealth skills, or rather, stalking Kakashi-nii-san. He knew about us this time, I was pretty sure, but he didn't do anything. Probably because it was our birthday. However, he did have a hobby of disappearing before showing up right behind us. I knew for sure that he got a kick from it, because he said the same thing every time, "Whatcha looking at?" He always knew when we were least expecting it, too, because all Naruto and I would talk about while stalking him now a days is when he would pop out of nowhere again, and even then it takes us by surprise. Of course, he would only stay long enough to watch our facial expressions before disappearing for good until we could find him again. If we were lucky, we'd find him twice a week.

Kakashi was going to our party. Actually, a lot of people were going to our party. At least, that's what it sounds like with all the names Mom listed when we asked who would be there. Of that list were Shikamaru and Sasuke, which was exciting, because I feel like this party is more for Mom and Dad than for Naruto and me. Still, I was really excited because we get to have cake and dango at the _same time_. It was a birthday miracle, that's for sure.

Due to my brother's incessant pulling we were only two minutes late. As expected, though, the Uchiha family was already there. Mom wasn't quite as impressed with our accomplishment.

"You're late," she hissed.

"Sorry, we were," I started. Naruto finished, "Stalking Kakashi-nii-san."

"What were you doing?" a voice asked.

Startling, we both whipped around to see Kakashi standing behind us. It was disconcerting because I could never sense him coming, even though I could feel chakra. It's like his disappeared , or something.

He smiled at us, judging by the crinkles by his eyes. "You two need to be more observant if you want to be ninja," he stated bluntly.

Gloom fell upon my brother and me. "Yeah, but we're still training. We'll get better, right, Naru?"

"Yeah, dattebayo. We're just showing you what you'll look like when we sneak up on you one of these days!"

Kakashi shrugged, "Anyway, happy birthday." Ruffling our hair, he moved around us to greet Mom.

We went to Sasuke, considering ourselves dismissed as our silver haired stalkee joined the adults. "That was lame, he totally got you guys," Sasuke commented.

"Yeah, well, you're lamer!" Naruto rebutted weakly.

"How?"

Brother got stuck on that one, "Well, um…"

"Naruto's faster than you," Shikamaru noted, smoothly joining our group.

"You came." I grinned at him, happy with his cool chakra. It was a nice change from Naruto's energetic and Sasuke's fiery energies.

He stared at me flatly, "I said I would, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know if you were going to be napping all day or not."

He smirked, "Fair enough."

We settled into the family room and pulled out the shogi board. Naruto and I sat to the side, ready to watch a battle of the wills between Sasuke and Shikamaru. Shikamaru always won, not once had he lost. It was intimidating, really, so I opted out of any shogi matches with him.

"Narumi, come and greet our guests," Dad called.

Obediently, went over to him leaving Naruto to watch the game. He was standing by a blonde man with a mullet and light colored eyes and a girl, probably the man's daughter, was sticking close to him.

"This is my old genin team mate Yamanaka Inoichi and his daughter, Ino. Make sure she feels welcome, okay?"

"Sure," I turned to Ino, "Wanna come meet my friends?" I didn't give her a chance to be unsure of herself as I grabbed her and dragged her to the boys. Luckily, the game wasn't finished yet so Sasuke wasn't in a bad mood. "Guys, this is Yamanaka Ino. Ino-chan, that's Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Nara Shikamaru." A chorus of greetings ensued, and after that was over, we settled in to watch Shikamaru beat the daylights out of Sasuke in shogi.

By the third time Sasuke lost Ino and I had braided each other's hair. I had two French braids leading to mini ponytails, because my blonde hair was too short for really long ponytails. Ino's was long, though, so I did one French braid straight down her back. There wasn't any more hair to play with, so Ino and I voted for a card game, it wasn't until after that I realized why she pushed so hard for it.

Ino smirked as she laid down her cards, which were evidence that she had not only won, but wiped the floor with the rest of us.

"Gah, every time," Naruto yelled, slamming his cards down in frustration before falling onto his back in despair.

"Wow, you're really good," I told her.

Ino practically glowed with pride, "My dad taught me, and he's the best."

"It's just luck," Sasuke sulked.

"Luck loses it's hold after the first time, she's won eight games in a row. You're just grumpy 'cause you lost," Shikamaru goaded. This drew everyone into an argument over why it was or wasn't luck, and whether or not there was cheating, and if there was cheating, was it even allowed, because we were ninja and ninja cheat, but we weren't ninja _yet_.

We were just quieting down again when even more people piled into the house. "Hey, you finally made it," Shikamaru's father greeted, smiling lazily. A big man walked through the door, he had russet colored hair. He was huge in more than just height, but then again I'm five, so the comparison isn't all that it probably should be. Nara-sama's friend went to talk with him, leaving a boy, who was like a cuter, miniature version of him, to stand at the door, eating chips. I ran over to greet him, because that was my job, I think. Dad did call me over to say hello to Ino, so I figured that extended to any of the kid guests.

"Hi."

"Hello," he replied, munching on a chip.

"My name's Uzumaki Narumi, what's yours?"

"Akimichi Chouji."

"Cool. Hey, let's be friends, and since we're friends, my friends are your friends, so let's go!"

I lead him over to the group, we had moved outside because the family room just wasn't cutting it anymore. We were under the biggest tree in our back yard. I called it our climbing tree because its branches were low enough to grab, and were sturdy, so much so to hold even Dad's weight easily. Introductions passed quickly, and it was while Ino was showing Chouji how good at cards she was by beating him that I came up with an idea.

"We're all friends here, right?"

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed.

Everyone nodded while Shikamaru rolled his eyes, "We wouldn't be hanging out if we weren't friends."

I ignored him, "And as we're such a big group of friends, we need a group name."

"Why?" Chouji asked.

"So that when we all get together, we can tell our parents who we're hanging out with without having to list all the names. And it'll sound cooler," I sat down, and we formed a circle so we could debate this properly.

"We need something short, so it's easy to remember us by," Ino noted.

"Something we all have in common, maybe?" Chouji suggested.

"So we're all included, dattebayo."

"Hn."

I raised my hand, "I'll go get the paper." Getting the paper and pen only took me two minutes, and apparently, it only took our group one to internally combust.

I sat beside Naruto to wait it out. "Brother, what did you do?" He had the smug look he always got after pulling the wool over some poor soul's eyes.

He grinned at me, "The ultimate prank."

"How is it ultimate?"

"They don't even know that I set them up." Meanwhile, the arguing got worse and worse, escalating in volume as it went.

"Hey!" it quieted down at the sound of Chouji's voice. "I think we should all go around the circle and say our suggestions. Narumi-chan will write them down, and then we will pick the top three, but you can't vote for your own, to be fair. Then we'll make edits and changes and vote again."

It was silent for a few beats before Sasuke shrugged, "Okay, who's going first?"

###########################

We all settled on the name the Game Changers. At first it was Game Players, this was derived, because we played a lot of games. Then Shikamaru said that life was like a shogi match, and Naruto said he wanted to be a hero. Ino noted that heroes change the world for the better and then suddenly we have an agreed upon group name.

Shikamaru was made our strategist, as he seemed to be the most capable, if his shogi skills were anything to go by. Naruto was our spokesperson because he could be really loud. I was the messenger, I would get the word out if we were hanging out and would report who was coming and other things like that. Ino was the psychologist, and if we needed it, she said, an interrogator because her clan has a special mind-jutsu. Chouji was the peacemaker, because he was the most level headed out of all of us. Sasuke was the police, because his dad ran the police force, and he said he was getting good at taijutsu.

"Wait, what about a leader?" The point that Naruto brought up stalled us.

"Well, who's the strongest? That's how we choose hokage," Ino said, frowning slightly.

"People get stronger though, there's no way to know if the strongest now will be the strongest later."

Sasuke nodded, "Shikamaru-kun has a point. Maybe… we shouldn't have a leader."

I tilted my head slightly, "What do you mean?"

"Well, we decided on the group name and positions within the group without a leader."

"But what if we all disagree, or it's split half and half? What then? We need a decision maker," Naruto pointed out.

"That's true," I agreed.

Ino shot up from her patch of grass, "I've got it! Let's have Chouji-kun be leader."

Chouji looked shell shocked, chip bag falling to the ground. "What, why me?"

"Well, the best leaders are the level headed ones. The fair ones, you _are_ the best out of all of us. You solved the group name crisis."

This was true, without Chouji, we'd probably still be arguing over who gets to pick it. The voting took place, and it was unanimous that Chouji was our leader. The only person who didn't vote for Chouji was Chouji himself, but in the end we convinced him.

"Kids, dango's ready," Mom called from the back door.

We all raced into the house, tripping over each other to get there. Mom held out a plate stacked with the treat, and we all collected one and said thank you. Everyone looked to Naruto, as he was our spokesperson.

"What?" he mumbled through a mouthful of dango. Then his eyes lit up in recognition, "Oh, right," he swallowed the dango. "We're not called kids, anymore."

"Honey, you're not adults yet. You may be five now, but-," Mom was cut off.

"No, no, our friend group. You can't call us kids, we have a group name."

Mom looked interested, "And what's that?"

We all looked at each other, before grinning at her, "The Game Changers," we announced.

"Let's announce positions, starting with our leader."

At this point all the adults had dropped whatever they were doing and formed a crowd around us. They looked at Naruto, expecting him to be it, as he was the one to start talking.

They were surprised when Chouji stepped up to state his position within the group. "I am the leader and peacemaker."

Next was Shikamaru, "I am the strategist."

"I'm the policeman," Sasuke raised his hand.

After him was Ino. "I'm the psychologist slash interrogator."

"I'm the messenger," I said.

Naruto straightened his posture, as all attention was on him, "I'm the spokesperson."

Mom looked just as stunned as the others, dark blue eyes slightly wide. "Um, okay then," she stuttered.

The Game Changers went outside to eat dango.

 **$$$$$$$$$$$ General POV:**

The kids, or rather, the Game Changers left the adults to their shock. How did this even happen? The party wasn't even three hours in and suddenly they've decided they're good enough friends to make an _official group_? That's the power of blunt innocence and cute faces.

"I know that this was the plan all along, but…" Minato trailed off.

Shikaku turned to Chouza, "Guess you have all the political pull with them, being Chouji's father and all."

The adults laughed, not really anything else they could do. Shikaku glanced out the window, where the kids were playing swords with the dango sticks. He could only imagine the headaches that their schemes would bring, but the alliance that would follow... He hummed, now _that_ certainly something to think about.

 **Second Chapter Complete, Game Changers, unite!**

 **Not sure if the name's going to stick, though. They're five, who takes five year olds seriously?**


End file.
